How to Play French Roulette: Rules, Bets, and Winning Tactics

This may be the classiest game in the casino. It is certainly the one that most clearly reflects the tradition and history of the game. 

When I first started dealing, I was fortunate enough to work at the Clermont Club, a small, high-end boutique casino in Berkeley Square in the West End of London. We frequently had guests from the upper echelon of London society show up. 

On my second night at work, the Duke and Duchess of Kent came in. The Clermont had a gaming floor that contained 10 tables, including a few Blackjack tables, a Craps table, Punto Banco, and American and French roulette.

The French Roulette table was a featured game, and at the time I didn’t realize that it was quite unusual to have such a high-end game available for our regular players.

I was a craps dealer there and was learning to deal American roulette at our sister club, the Playboy Club, about a 10-minute walk away on Park Lane. 

I used to love watching the croupiers deal at the French Roulette table.  They were so smooth and skilled, and a delight to watch. They used a rake and a palette to move the chips and plaques around, and we had a South African croupier who was almost like a magician in how he handled the chips and plaques.

When you have finished reading this article, you will know the differences between French Roulette, European Roulette and American Roulette.  You will understand the French rules of La Partage, En Prison, and ‘announced bets’, and that the game is ‘next level’ sophisticated in how the players view the wheel and how they (and you) can bet the various sections of the wheel.

Let’s get started!

French Roulette vs European Roulette - Any Differences?

You may wonder whether we are talking about something else when it comes to the French roulette.

Throughout this article, I will call the single zero wheel a French wheel, even though it is identical to a European wheel. 

Sometimes you’re going to hear that European and French Roulette are exactly the same game.

The game is overseen by a supervisor, seated on a highchair to facilitate a complete view of the entire game.

Nowadays, it's going to be very unusual to see a French Roulette game anywhere except perhaps in the VIP rooms of a very high-end casino with a $50 minimum bet or more. 

It takes up a lot of space, and the labor cost of running this slow game is very high. 

On the main casino floor of the Casino de Monte-Carlo there are multiple French Roulette tables, which is the world-renowned home of French Roulette.

The layouts for each game are different.

As you can see, the French layout has the even money bets spread across both sides of the layout, and the 2 to 1 bets on the Columns and Dozens are situated together at the end of the table away from the wheel.

It’s easy to see that the Inside and Outside section names came from the original French layout.

The French layout is set up this way because the table may have 3 croupiers working, who assist the players in placing their bets.

The English Layout including the Racetrack allows the game to be dealt with the Announced Bets available to the players. Which is essentially the French game, but dealt on a smaller layout, which allows it to be dealt by a single dealer.

Unlike the English, European and American game, where the players have their own color chips to play with, the croupiers on a French game keep track of all the players bets, because the players all use the same-color value chips.

In the US, the American wheel, with it’s double zero, is virtually everywhere, with the American table and layout with no Racetrack. 

I’ve never seen a French table or an English table with a Racetrack in a US casino. 

The single zero wheel may show up in the US, usually in a high limit room, but it would be with an English-style table and layout.

The reason is that the labor cost of running a true French game, with its 4 croupiers (3 on the table and one on break), plus a dedicated supervisor in the highchair, make it prohibitively expensive to run the game.

The game in Monte Carlo and other high-end casinos in Europe caters to truly high-end play.

All the other games on the retail floors would have a French wheel and an English layout and table.

Some, referred to as ‘English Roulette’ would include the Racetrack as part of the layout. 

Some would not include the Racetrack.

The Unique French Rules

La Partage and En Prison rules are unique to the French and/or English game, played on a single zero French wheel.

La Partage is French for ‘Sharing, or The Share’.  En Prison is French for ‘In Prison’.

Many casinos don’t include these rules at all, even if they’re using the French single zero wheel.

For a casino that is using them, both rules apply only to the even money bets of Red and Black, High and Low, and Odd and Even.

When the zero hits, any bet on one of those six even money bets doesn’t lose.

If the casino is using the ‘La Partage’ rule, the croupier will take 50% of the bet and return the other 50% to the player.

If the casino is using the ‘En Prison’ rule, the croupier will mark the bet with a lammer, indicating that the bet is ‘En Prison’, which is like being in escrow.  The next spin will determine if the bet loses or is returned to the player.

In the Casino de Monte-Carlo, the English roulette game automatically defaults to the En Prison rule.

On the larger, double-sided French roulette table, the player can choose whether he wants to use the La Partage or En Prison rule when the zero hits.

For a complete break down of the differences between European and American roulette, go here.  Please include a link to the article on American vs. European roulette.

The Roulette Wheel and Table Layout

Why is the game with French rules better for the players than the game with the standard European rules, and why is it a much better game to play than the American game? 

The French Game

The French game, which includes the ‘Announced Bets,’ may have a House Advantage as low as 1.35%.  It is played on a double-sided French table layout, with a French wheel with 37 numbers and a single zero.

The European Game

The European game, using the same wheel as the French game with its single zero and 37 numbers, has a House Advantage working against the player of 2.7%.  Generally, the European game is played with the same rules as the French game, but on a single-sided English layout, which may or may not include ‘the Racetrack’.  The HA of the European game is approximately ½ of the HA of the American game. 

The English Game

The English game, as it is referred to in France, includes the French wheel, and the English single-sided layout.  It does include the ‘Announced Bets’ and ‘the Racetrack’.  It also includes the ‘En Prison’ rule which reduces the House Advantage on the even money bets to 1.35%.  This means the English and French games have a House Advantage of approximately ¼ of the American game.

All three of the alternative roulette games are much better for the players than the American game.

The American Game

The American game is played with an American wheel, including 38 numbers and the single and double zero.   It is played on a single-sided American layout, including the single and double zero betting spaces. 

The American game has the worst House Advantage for the players at 5.26%.  It does not include the Racetrack or the Announced Bets, because those bets don’t appear on the American wheel.

As a point of reference, a standard 6-deck blackjack shoe game has a House Advantage of slightly less than 1%.  Which is approximately 1/5th of the American roulette game.

The French Table Layout

The French table and layout are significantly different to the English and American table and layout. 

The players sit on both sides of the French table and the French game has three croupiers dealing the game, plus a dedicated supervisor to watch the game.

Perhaps most tellingly, the players all use the same-color value chips, so the croupiers must keep track of whose bet is whose.

French Roulette Rules

I am including the rules that are in place at the Casino de Monte-Carlo in Monaco, in the South of France.  Other casinos may have different rules in place, but I believe this casino would be considered the gold standard for French Roulette.

The betting areas for the Dozens are located at the bottom of the layout, with an area on each side of the Inside betting area.

Basic Gameplay

The game is played with the same rules as the more well-known and common European and American layout and game, with three exceptions.

The French rules allow the players to bet on two columns, or two dozens simultaneously. 

The bet is placed on the line between the two betting areas.

The bets are called Colonne a Cheval (Split Column), and Douzaine a Cheval (Split Dozen).

The player is required to bet 2 units to win one – so the player is laying two to win one.

All the other bets are made in the same way as on a standard roulette table, and the winning bet is decided by which numbered pocket the ball lands in.

Bet Types, Payouts, and Odds in French Roulette

* - please note that these bets are only available on a French Roulette table

Inside and Outside Bets

These are bet types like Straight-Up, Split, Corner, and Even/Odd, High/Low etc.

The Inside and Outside bets are the same on each version of the wheel and table layout.

The Inside bets include all the numbers and the zero. You can bet as many as six of the Inside numbers with one or more chips.

If you want to bet more than six numbers, then the Outside bets are for you. 

The Outside  includes the Dozens and the Columns, which have 12 numbers each, and the even money bets of Red and Black, High and Low, and Odd and Even, which all have 18 numbers each.

Announced Bets

The French wheel and game include the ‘Announced Bets’. 

These generally refer to two groups of bets.

The first group refers to bets that cover a fixed set of numbers on a French wheel and a specific way they are bet.  They will not be accepted on an American wheel because the numbers don’t appear in the same order on an American wheel.

Les Voisins du Zero (The Neighbors of Zero),

Le Tiers du Cylindre (The Third of the Wheel),

Les Orphelins (The Orphans),

Jeu Zero (Zero Game).

The second group is a recognized bet, but the numbers are variable based on what the player wants to bet.

Two of these bets refer to numbers that are identified by the last digit. 

And the third group refers to ‘the Neighbors’. 

A neighbors bet is a 5-piece bet and refers to a specific number and the two numbers on each side of that number as they appear on the French wheel.

For example, 10 and the neighbors would be a bet on 8, 23, 10, 5, and 24.

A Split has two numbers; therefore, you can make a maximum bet of two times the listed maximum on a Split (i.e. $100 for each of the two numbers – so $200).   A Street has three numbers, so you can make a maximum bet of three times the listed maximum on a Street.  A Corner has four numbers, so you can make a maximum bet of four times the listed maximum on a Corner, and so on. 

Essentially, it comes down to being able to bet the listed maximum bet (in this case $100) for the quantity of numbers that can be covered.  So for a Split, that would be two numbers, so $200. For a Street it would be three numbers, so $300 and so on.

And as you can see in the table below, there is a significant difference in the amount you can bet, and the amount you can win.

The Complete Bet

If you want to cover a number with the same amount of chips, but don’t want to bet the maximum amount, you can ask the croupier for ‘The Complete Bet’. 

This refers to the same one chip Straight-Up bet, two chips on the Splits, four on each of the Corners, three chips on the Street, and six chips on each of the two SixLines. 

For a number in the main body of the first or third column (let’s say 16 and 18), it would be a 30-piece bet.

For a number in the main body of the middle column (let’s say 17), it is a 40-piece bet.

And of course, you can place the bet yourself if you prefer to. 

Strategies for Winning in French Roulette

The points we covered in the ‘Roulette Strategy’ article hold true for the French Roulette game, too.  You can read my other roulette guides to explore the main strategies in depth, including the Martingale, the Fibonacci, the Bond, James Bond and the LaBouchere Strategy and some others.  And yes, there really is a James Bond strategy and it does include a bet on the 00 and the 7.  

Even Money Bets and La Partage and En Prison

While none of the strategies can overcome the House Advantage, it is significantly lower on French roulette at 2.7% than the typical American game at 5.26% and may be as low as 1.35% if you’re playing the Even Money bets and the rules include La Partage or En Prison.

Go here for a detailed description of those rules and why they’re good for the players.   

Avoiding "Hot" and "Cold" Numbers

As the Director of Slots, I used to publish a weekly list of the machines that were ‘hot’. 

I would publish the ‘cold machine’ list, too.

What that means is I would list out the games that had paid out a lot over the last week.

And the games that hadn’t paid out much for the same period.

Of course, it didn’t help the players at all, even though some of them thought it did. 

Slot machines are inanimate objects.  They don’t know that they just hit a jackpot.  They don’t know that they’ve been paying out way more than usual for the last couple of days. 

Similarly, the machines don’t know that they haven’t been paying out very much at all for the last few days.

But we humans like to see patterns where there aren’t any and try to make sense and order out of chaos. 

So I would publish these lists because some of the players liked to see them.

But it doesn’t make any difference – the machines don’t know what they did last spin.

Or ten spins ago, or fifty spins ago. 

And more importantly, they don’t care.  

House Edge in French Roulette

The House Advantage on  French Roulette is generally 2.7%. 

As a bonus, when playing the even money bets of Red/Black, High/Low, and Odd/Even and the game includes La Partage or En Prison, the HA on those bets is reduced to 1.35%.

This makes French Roulette one of the most player-friendly games in the casino.

A game that uses a single zero wheel that doesn’t include La Partage or En Prison has a House Advantage of 2.7%.

A game that uses the American wheel, with it’s single and double zero wheel has an HA of 5.26%.

The game that uses a Triple Zero wheel – i.e. it has 39 numbers that includes 3 green pockets (0, 00, and 000) has a House Advantage of 7.69%.  It is a price gouging ploy by some casinos to increase their revenues by taking advantage of the lack of knowledge of their retail players.  

Don’t play this game!

Playing French Roulette Online

If you prefer, you can play French Roulette online and/or on your mobile device. 

You can play for free, or for real money. 

Online casinos generally will let you access all the casino games they offer, including French Roulette from your phone or mobile device, and some will have downloadable apps that will offer a better gaming experience.

Many of the online casinos offer free play practice games for you to play so that you can get comfortable with how the games play before you put up some real money. 

Many of the better-known software developers have created mobile-friendly games for all their games including French Roulette online.

Some players prefer Live Dealer games over the RNG games offered by an online casino. 

The Live Dealer games run slower than the RNG games, especially if they have many players. 

Personally, I prefer the RNG online games because they are faster, but the game that you prefer is the best game for you to play.

Conclusions

The French Roulette game is the best roulette game in the casino for the player to play. 

Including La Partage or En Prison, it has a House Advantage on the even money bets of 1.35%, which is almost exactly ¼ of the HA of an American roulette game. 

It is also the classiest of all the casino games, with tuxedo-clad croupiers and a sophisticated presentation that may be exactly what you’re looking for. 

The ‘Announced Bets’ add a more interesting and complex betting structure, so overall it’s a more fun, challenging and sophisticated game to play.